SIOUX! The record of this part of my life comes to me sometimes as a series of vivid pictures.

I can see this picture now--the wide gray of the flat valley, edged with green at the coulee mouths; the sandy spots where the wind had worked at the foot of the banks; the dotted islands out in the shimmering, shallow river.

I can see again, under the clear, sweet, quiet sky, the picture of those painted men--their waving lances, their swaying bodies as they reached for the quivers across their shoulders.

I can see the loose ropes trailing at the horses' noses, and see the light leaning forward of the red and yellow and ghastly white-striped and black-stained bodies, and the barred black of the war paint on their faces.

I feel again, so much almost that my body swings in unison, the gathering stride of the ponies cutting the dust into clouds.